The NYT has some skilled wordsmiths, no denying it. That’s usually cause for outrage, as their talents are used to advance a political agenda, truth be damned.
But when they play it straight they do some fine reporting.
This is a good overview of the main radiological concerns posed by Japan’s reactors.
Cesium-137 is the biggie for non-occupational workers. It disperses in the environment but then builds up in the food chain. Contaminated milk? That hits home for anyone who cares about children.
But again, this will not be a Chernobyl. Even if they lose Curies and Curies of Cs-137, apparently the fallout is to sea. Does that mean it will be incorporated into the oceans’ biosystems? Yes. But it will be dispersed vastly more than is when coating the countryside. That takes concentrations down enough that, should you eat Pacific seafood, the danger will again be “incalculable“.
World's Only Rational Man 
And speaking of newspapers which are trying to spread the calm of rational thinking on the raging waters, let’s give a big hand to the Daily Telegraph. Here’s its contribution, which was its huge headline in today’s edition, a pic of which is on Drudge: “JAPAN FIGHTS FOR ITS LIFE”. The only thing missing was an above-the-fold use of the “Rape Of Nanking” baby, with a caption like “Child evacuated from reactor death zone. ”
Man that is disappointing, not least because I had thought the Telegraph, along with the The Times Of London to be the last bastion of journalistic integrity and restraint in what is now more accurately if sadly known as “Mediocre Britain”.
I’ll check that out. Is that “FIGHTS FOR ITS LIFE” about the nuclear reactors? Ridiculous. I’d cut ’em some slack if it was about the rest of it.
They can’t possibly be “fighting for their life” over a leaking reactor. If that can wipe them out, then Little Boy and Fat Man disintegrated the entire island back in 1945.